Wednesday, November 4, 2015

The Boy and the Man and Pokeman

I was working on my computer this morning. I'm balancing more things than I can handle right now and headed for a not good place in many ways. In addition to an overload of work right now, my father is not well (please pray for Moshe ben Malka...Moshe, the son of Malka) and then I've got this army thing coming at me.

So, I'm trying to work, answer emails, post about our next conference launch (www.megacomm.org), and I was waiting for Amira to call and pick up David. She's driving him to his yeshiva on her way to the hospital and as he was sitting behind me on the couch as I work here on the dining room table.

"Tell me when to stop..." he said.

"When to stop?" I asked.

"Say when I should stop," he repeated as he clicked away on his phone.

I waited a few seconds and then said, "Stop."

He clicked something and then seemed to think that was funny. "Green...grass," he said. "You picked grass."

"What does that mean?"

"Fire, grass, water. Grass is stronger than water; water is stronger than fire, fire is stronger than grass."

"Huh?" I asked in my most intelligent parenting voice.

"Pokeman," he said with a laugh.

"Pokeman?" I asked. "Pokeman? You're playing Pokeman instead of taking out the garbage?"

"Yup," he responded.

And then he told me how he'll be giving up the green/grass one anyway because the phone application has "cheats" - codes you can put in to cheat and get stronger Pokeman.

And as I turned back to my computer with a laugh I remembered that in three weeks...the army. It's again that huge mountain in the front window coming barreling towards us...or maybe we are barreling towards it. But it isn't here yet. He's still my boy. Inside the body that is taller than everyone else in the family, is a piece of the boy he once was. There's a lot of man inside too as he discusses guns and training and uniforms with his brothers. He'll be issued a Tavor gun (rifle?...thing that shoots?).

The boy will yield more and more to the man; it will become harder and harder to see him until one day he'll be all but gone. I miss him already so I have to keep reminding myself he's still here...and even if he goes deeper inside, he'll never really be gone completely...yesterday, Elie, at 28 years of age, wrestled some ice cream out of David's hand...and then I told Davidi where there was another container hidden deep inside the freezer.

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

May HKBH comfort and protect him. Entering the IDF will forever change him, but may he keep in youthful innocence so that he still find fun in Pokeman. He is becoming a protector of all of Israel and Jews around the world. I will daven for his well-being.